Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
It's difficult to extract sense from strings, but they're the only communication coin we can count on.
Alan J. Perlis
Often it is the means that justify the ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.
Alan J. Perlis
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.
Nathaniel S Borenstein
Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
Anonymous
Over the centuries the Indians developed sign language for communicating phenomena of interest. Programmers from different tribes (FORTRAN, LISP, ALGOL, SNOBOL, etc.) could use one that doesn't require them to carry a blackboard on their ponies.
Alan J. Perlis
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Sometimes I think the only universal in the computing field is the fetch-execute cycle.
Alan J. Perlis
My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared.
P. J. Plauger
Software is like sex: It's better when it's free.
Linus Torvalds